How to Use the Traceroute Command

Traceroute utility checks how many "hops" (transfers through other computers on a network) it takes for your computer to contact another computer. It is a computer network tool used to determine the route taken by packets across an IP network.

In Windows, select Start > Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt. This will give you a window like the one below.

Enter the word tracert, followed by a space, then the domain name.

• First Column - hop count (number of stops of your information has made along the route to the other computer)
• Example: 1
• Next 3 columns - each hop is tested 3 times. These are the responses from the router.
• Example: 1ms     1ms     1ms
• Last Column - domain name that responded the request
• Example: 192.168.1.1

You can also right the output directly to the file: 

tracert yahoo.com > tracert-yahoo.txt

Monday Morning Madness

Monday Morning Madness

This morning we discovered 33 Twitter accounts had been "hacked" including prominent Twitter-ers like Rick Sanchez and Barack Obama (who has not been Twittering since becoming the president elect due to transition issues). We immediately locked down the accounts and investigated the issue. Rick, Barack, and others are now back in control of their accounts.

What Happened?

The issue with these 33 accounts is different from the Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users this weekend. These accounts were compromised by an individual who hacked into some of the tools our support team uses to help people do things like edit the email address associated with their Twitter account when they can't remember or get stuck. We considered this a very serious breach of security and immediately took the support tools offline. We'll put them back only when they're safe and secure.

Reacting Quickly and Fixing the Problems

In addition to this Monday morning madness we're coming off a wacky weekend where lots of folks were tricked into participating in a Phishing scam aimed at Twitter users. In both cases, our on-call team was able to attend to the matter quickly and prevent too many people from being affected. Our support team is definitely going to have a busy week because we reset a bunch of passwords just to be on the safe side.

Could OAuth Have Helped?

We plan to release a closed beta of the open authentication protocol, OAuth this month but it's important to note that this would not have prevented a Phishing scam nor would it have prevented these accounts from being compromised. OAuth is something we can provide so that folks who use third party applications built on the Twitter API can access their data while protecting their account credentials.

What Are We Doing?

We are engaged in a full security review of all access points to Twitter. In the meantime, we are taking immediate action. First, we are increasing the security of our sign-in mechanism. For added security, we are further restricting access to our support tools. Events like this will happen from time to time to services like ours and its important how we conduct ourselves and that we take this as an opportunity to make Twitter stronger.

The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://blog.twitter.com/2009/01/monday-morning-madness.html

How Twitter.com's DNS was Hacked

Written by John Carnell
Friday, 18 December 2009 08:53

Here is how the DNS Hack works

Hackers know that to gain access to a system they have to go through multiple layers of security designed to keep them out, so the best approach is to try and find a weak link in the chain. External servers that provide a service to Twitter are a good place to start.

In his case the Hackers targeted Twitters DNS record, DNS as I have written about before is how we make web addresses relate to a unique number on the web called the IP address when you type in Twitter.com the DNS servers "Translate" that into a number and locate the correct server for you.

The hackers Hijacked the DNS record and point it to a server they control. Twitters own servers were not directly compromised!

In this instance we were VERY LUCKY the hackers were just making a point, it could of been much worse if they had setup a clone of the Twitter.com homepage and collected login information.
How to guard against this sort of DNS Hijack Attack

The best way to guard against this sort of attack is to make sure your Domain contact details are up to date, that you use a complex password to access your DNS providers control panels and if its a .com .net or .org domain that you keep the DOMAIN LOCK ON.

These are all precautions that can make it more difficult for a hacker to take control of your domain name, sadly though if the hacker manages to comprimise the DNS providers system using other methods there's not much you can do to prevent it.

If it happens to you contact your DNS provider immediately and ask them to revert you back to your last IP address, change all your passwords and place an elevated watch on your account or ask that they contact you first before accepting any changes in future.

The copyrighted work at issue is the text that appears on http://www.technicavita.org/social-advice/twitter/how-twittercoms-dns-was-hacked.html

Twitter was Hacked

Twitter or to be more precise the DNS records of twitter were 'hacked' for a 1 full hour by someone who called himself The Iranian Cyberarmy.